Bio: Dr Alexandrina Vanke holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Manchester. She has more than 10 years of research experience and participated in nine team projects. Alexandrina specialises in the application of interdisciplinary qualitative research methods, including interviewing, participant observation, ethnography, and creative and arts-based approaches. Her research interests include everyday life, intersectional inequalities, urban space and cultural practice. Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Member of the British Sociological Association.

Bio: "Victoria Lomasko is a Russian contemporary artist based in Moscow. She has a degree in Graphic Arts from Moscow State University of Print¬ing Arts. Her book Other Russias is a collection of ‘graphic reportages,’ a self-described style of art making and record keeping. It was published in six countries, for example in the USA by n+1 and in the UK by Penguin. During the past few years, mural making has become the main passion of her practice. Her work has appeared in Art in America, The Guardian, GQ Russia, The New Yorker and in exhibitions around the world including Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, Austria, Garage Museum in Moscow, Russia, Miami University Humanities Center in Oxford, USA, GRAD at Somerset House, London, UK and the Cartoonmuseum, in Basel, Switzerland. Lomasko’s art is based on the synthesis of text and images. In her graphic reportages text is an important element as drawing is. In her practice, writing essays and poems precedes the sketching of monumental works so she refers her murals as “frozen poems”. Her art has developed from Soviet style (the artist used to call herself The Last Soviet Artist) to fantasy compositions that are based on real events and include reworked sketches from nature. Moving from documentary depicting concrete cases and from journalism to a narrative on big historical processes using symbolic language, the artist continues describing the modern life."